Nox Aeterna
by waytooshy
Summary: Love. Love was all it took to thaw Elsa's ice. And Arendelle was at peace. [Written for Elsanna Shenanigans June 2019 monthly prompt][Elsanna, incest, canon-ish]


This story was written for Elsanna Shenanigans June 2019 Contest with the prompt being fear of the dark (word limit: over 750 words, no upper limit). Please check out elsanna-shenanigans on tumblr for more information on the monthly prompt contests or join us on discord at discordDOTgg/TU9NpnH (you know what to do with that DOT).

The story is _inspired_ by Game of Thrones, but you don't need to know anything about the series to read it.

* * *

**Nox Aeterna**

Love.

Love was all it took to thaw Elsa's ice.

And Arendelle was at peace.

* * *

Anna sat on Elsa's throne, watching her pace back and forth along the crimson carpet, hands clutching at her sides as she was clearly fighting the urge to bite her nails.

"They can't be serious, though," Anna said, wincing at how her voice echoed in the vast throne room. Elsa almost jumped as well. "Right?"

Elsa turned to look at her, panic clearly visible across her pretty face. "They've mentioned declaring war, Anna."

Anna's eyes widened.

"They will be sending an emissary with their terms, he should arrive in less than three days," Elsa continued, cracking her knuckles in stress. "But I know what those terms are even without them saying it out loud."

Anna held her breath.

"They want me to abdicate."

"That's nonsense!" She sat up straighter, fueled by the sudden anger rising in her chest. "Arendelle is yours _by law_, you have every right to be the Queen. You are the firstborn–"

"In their eyes I am nothing but a witch." Elsa looked up at her from the bottom of the stairs leading up to the throne. "They think I took the city by force."

"But–"

"_I know_," she sighed. "But they won't listen."

Anna blinked. "You are the rightful monarch, and they can verify that with one look at the books." She bit her lip in thought, eyes focused on Elsa as she stood, slouched and defeated before her. "They're just scared. They're acting like children because they're scared."

"Wouldn't you be?"

Anna raised her brows. This was the first time Elsa asked this question outright. "No," she said, believing it will all her might. "Because I know you. Given a chance, they might see that as well."

Elsa climbed the steps. "I don't think giving them that chance would be wise."

The deep sadness in her voice took Anna by surprise. Whereas before the young Queen was simply nervous and panicked, this now… she couldn't mean–

"They wouldn't try to harm you. _Or _declare war, for that matter." Anna shook her head in disbelief. "They wouldn't dare."

But she started having doubts even as the words left her mouth.

"Wouldn't they?" Elsa whispered, grasping one of Anna's hands and bringing it to her chest as she knelt down before the throne. Her face was turned towards the floor, and Anna could tell she was holding back sobs. "What am I supposed to do?"

With her heart broken in half, Anna reached over to envelop her in an embrace with the one arm that wasn't occupied. "Would it help if you _did_ abdicate?" she murmured into the soft, fair hair. Elsa stirred, but before she could reply, Anna continued. "I am the next in line. And you'd always be _my_ Queen."

Elsa let out a sob that shook her entire body, before she pulled away to look Anna in the eyes. "I–I don't know," she admitted, but her voice was already more hopeful than just a second ago. "It could. Maybe. But we can't be sure."

Anna wiped the tears from the corner of Elsa's eye with her thumb, softly, trying to convey all the love she felt for this broken girl in front of her. "Whatever path you take, I will be by your side. I promise that."

She pressed her hand firmer over Elsa's heart, and felt it hammer strongly in her chest.

* * *

"Elsa?"

Anna had never seen her this horrified before. Her eyes were wide open and unfocused, hands grasping the fabric of her emerald dress so hard she was sure it was seconds away from tearing to shreds, jaw set so tightly she could almost hear her teeth crack.

"Elsa!"

She snapped her eyes to Anna's face, but there still was no recognition in them. Anna strode across the hall to grab her shoulders, hoping a gentle shake could help bring her back.

"Elsa, please…"

"I–I ruined everything."

She stammered that out so quickly it took Anna a moment to process the words.

"What do you mean?"

"The emissary," Elsa spat the word out like it was poisoned. "I– he–"

She didn't continue. She just stood there, shaking, fingers now clumsily playing with the cords at the front of Anna's dress. Like a little child clutching at its mother for support.

Anna's eyes widened. "You did something to him?"

Elsa nodded.

"Elsa," Anna said slowly, very carefully, applying ever so slightly more pressure to her grip. "What did you do?"

"H–he threatened me… the city–"

"Elsa."

"He threatened _you_!" She finally looked at her, truly looked at her, and there was fury burning in her cold blue eyes.

Anna took an instinctive step back, and those eyes set back to sadness.

"What did you do?" she whispered the question again, even if she didn't want to think about it. There was no reason to think about it. Surely Elsa–

"I killed him."

Anna's heart stopped. Elsa tried to reach out for her again, but she moved further back.

"Anna, I'm so–"

"You _killed him_!?"

"It was an accident!" There were so many emotions in that single shriek. Anna wanted to hug her and slap her and yell at her and tell her everything was alright all at the same time. "He threatened you! Said you would be treated as a witch as well!"

Her voice echoed down the hall like a booming storm, but she stood still where Anna left her, some stray tears now slowly beginning to roll down her face. She was still in shock, was all Anna could think. And she was coming down from this shock now.

Elsa was breaking apart before her eyes, right under her harsh gaze.

"So you killed him to _protect me_?" Anna asked quietly once the echo died out. "The messenger, Elsa? What do you think this will mean to them!?"

"I don't know!" She grabbed fistfuls of her hair and pulled hard, enough for Anna to see the skin of her scalp strain. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't– oh Lord, Anna, what am I going to do!?"

She was over by her side in a flash, tugging her arms down, embracing her when she inevitably broke down in tears and wild cries, holding her up with all the physical power she could when she threatened to fall down to the floor. Elsa clung on to her like she was the last strand of fresh air in an airtight cavern, holding on for dear life as she screamed into her shoulder, a cacophony of _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so so sososososo–_

"Shh," Anna whispered softly into her ear, tracing shapes on her back, trying to calm her down. "Shh, Sweetheart, you're good. I've got you. It was an accident."

It was, really, she believed it. A true _clusterfuck_ of an accident, but not something they couldn't work their way out of.

"What _we're _going to do," she made sure to let her know she was not alone in it, "first of all, is we'll make sure this doesn't leave the castle, for as long as possible."

* * *

But it turned out that some things they couldn't just simply work their way out of.

With the emissary's frozen body buried in the gardens, his guard imprisoned, and the guards that stood by Elsa's throne that day on a tight leash, they tried to play dumb. When a letter came, they answered pretending the emissary never made it to Arendelle. When another letter came, they answered he _still_ didn't make it to the castle. That he must have been miraculously lost in the woods.

_Luckily_, an avalanche went down a few days after the accident. In a secluded area somewhere between where the emissary had been seen last and the capital city. A _totally _natural case. Poor man and his guard must have been caught in it. Bodies never found. A truly heart wrenching tragedy.

They were free and safe, at least until another one was sent.

And just as it looked like they might have bought some time to come up with some solid plan, the people of Arendelle started _talking_.

"One of the guards must have told someone," Elsa said one evening, sitting on Anna's bed as she waited for her sister to get ready for the night. There was something odd about her voice, but Anna couldn't quite decide what. "Those stupid idiots! Have they no idea how important it is they keep their mouths shut!?"

Anna frowned at her reflection. She set the hairbrush down on her vanity, then turned around to face Elsa. "First, you need to calm down, or the entire castle staff will know there is some secret to be found." She gave her a pointed look. "Second… I'm not gonna lie, Elsa, that's probably what happened." She bit her lip. "That, or maybe the prisoner somehow– but we made sure his guard could not understand him."

Elsa looked lost in thought for a moment.

"He still might have… drawn that on the floor?" Anna mused, making her way over to the bed. "With… something?"

She unceremoniously pushed her way into Elsa's lap, straddling her.

"Or maybe he's a great mime."

"That's not funny, Anna."

Anna leant down to place a soft kiss on her lips. "I know," she said when she pulled away, noticing Elsa's brows were no longer furrowed. "But there's no point trying to figure it out now. We'll question them." She slid one of Elsa's night-gown sleeves off her shoulder. "All three of them, tomorrow."

But now she needed Elsa close, and she needed her thinking about her and _her only_. And she knew Elsa needed the same.

* * *

It turned out to be one of the guards. Karl, a young boy from the city, nominated Queen's guard by the general not long before the accident. It took less than a few questions to get a confession out of him.

"Do you realize what that means?" Elsa asked sternly from her throne.

It was just the three of them in the room–Elsa sitting down with Anna standing to her left, and the poor boy almost pissing his pants down before the stairs.

"I–I am so sorry, Your Majesty," he stammered, playing nervously with the rim of the hat he held in his hands. "I only t-told my wife. I couldn't–"

"Do you _realize _what that means, Karl?" Elsa repeated, angrier, leaning forward in the chair. "Your wife is suddenly _half of the city_. You swore an oath to protect me, and now soon the whole of Arendelle will know a secret I specifically asked you to _keep to yourself_."

He stuttered something unintelligible in response.

Anna took a step forward. "Your Queen has asked you a question."

"I'm sorry," he repeated. His knees were shaking so hard Anna was sure he was going to bore a hole in the floor. His eyes dashed between Anna and Elsa. "I–I broke my oath, Your Majesty."

"That you did." Elsa stood up, but made no move to step forward. "Do you know what the punishment for that is?"

Now Anna looked at her, puzzled. They were supposed to get the man to the dungeon, stealthily, so as not to make any bigger mess. But something about Elsa's posture told her there was a sudden change of plans.

Something dark. Something that sent shivers down Anna's spine.

"Your Majesty, I be–"

He was cut off by a large icicle rising swiftly from the floor, piercing right through his throat. Blood gurgled in his mouth as his eyes bulged out of his face, dashing one last time from Elsa to Anna before they rolled back into his skull. His body slumped. He slid down ever so slightly along the icicle, blood pouring down the ice like a muddy river through a glacier.

Anna stood in shock with her mouth hanging open, unable to believe what she just saw happen before her eyes.

"Find me his wife. And the other guard."

She barely registered Elsa speaking. Her eyes were still fixed on the corpse in front of her, the still warm body melting the icicle, sliding down along its jagged shaft. Blood dripped onto the stone floor in a sickening melody.

"Anna."

She turned to look at the woman to her right–the woman she held weeping, broken, in this very room, not two weeks ago. Her face was completely blank and her eyes dark, but other than that she still looked like her Elsa. Her Queen.

The woman she swore to protect.

"Have you heard me?"

The question was much softer than she'd expect. Slowly, Anna nodded her head.

"Good." Elsa walked over to her, placing an ice cold hand at her cheek. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she murmured, her other hand sliding down Anna's arm as she pulled her closer. "But there are some things that will never be the same anymore for us, Love. Everything will work out in the end." She placed a chaste kiss on Anna's motionless mouth. When she pulled away, she had a soft smile on her lips. "Just find me his wife, please."

Again, Anna could do nothing but nod. Half of her feared what might happen if she didn't.

* * *

They stood in barren plains, a hundred yards away from the edge of the forest that marked the end of Arendellian lands.

"Can you please tell me why we're here?" Anna asked, somewhat impatient. Elsa had been pretty cryptic the entire journey.

It was beginning to tire her out. Elsa would make these plans that she'd keep to herself, and then Anna would learn _in media res _that they were supposed to execute another rumor spreader.

"This is it, you know?" Elsa said, in her recently typical cryptic manner. "The edge. That over there is not ours anymore."

"Yes, I do realize that," Anna huffed. "What about it?"

"They're all out there," Elsa dropped to a whisper. "All out there, while we are in here. We're safe here."

"Elsa, you're sounding crazy."

Elsa turned to look at her with a peaceful expression. "Sorry, you're probably right." She grabbed Anna's hand and gave it a little squeeze. "What I meant is that– I have to protect you."

"As I you."

Elsa laughed softly, covering her mouth with the other hand. "Of course, Love." She turned to look at the edge of the forest and her face dropped again. "But if war is what they want, I fear we might have a hard time doing that."

Anna furrowed her brows in confusion.

"So we just won't let them in."

Elsa let go of her hand and lifted both her arms above her head as if in prayer, and suddenly Anna felt the earth tremble beneath her feet. The tremors got more and more intense, until it was impossible for her not to fall to her knees, but Elsa still stood unflinching in her spot. Before Anna had a chance to yell a question, ice– a _wall_ of ice rose from the ground, at least forty yards thick, ruining everything in its path. The earth cracked and moaned with every foot the wall rose. Anna's eyes were transfixed on the glistening ice, jagged and rough, completely out of place in these parts of the country as it rose taller than the trees that disappeared behind it. She glanced over at Elsa and saw sweat dripping down her temples, her teeth gritted and blue veins popping across her cheeks, forehead and the exposed part of her neck. Her eyes flashed with an odd light once the wall was tall enough to completely cover the Sun hanging low over the western lands, but the wall kept rising and rising until Anna couldn't see the top anymore, drowned in clouds.

She looked around. As far as she could see, the wall stretched on the horizon, closing them in.

The tremors ended and Elsa fell, but Anna was quick to catch her.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly, cradling her in her lap.

Elsa was panting heavily, tears streaming down her face, leaving a frosty trail across the still visible blue veins. She was so cold to the touch it was almost unbearable, even through their thick travel clothes.

But she nodded in answer, and Anna let a relieved breath out. She held her still, only rocking her gently every now and then to make sure she was still there with her.

"Why did you do that?" she asked after a while, once Elsa's heartbeat was at an acceptable level, and not literally audible through her chest.

"They won't get in," she muttered in a tired, hoarse voice. She looked up at Anna with those strange, striking blue eyes, before they faded back to her regular color. "You will be safe, Love."

When Anna bent down to kiss her, her mouth went numb from the cold before their lips even touched.

* * *

Normally she'd be irritated at Elsa for interrupting her sword fighting training, but the Queen was so excited she didn't have the heart to be mad at her.

"Come on, Anna!" she exclaimed, dragging her by the wrist along the halls, going so fast Anna had a hard time keeping up without tripping over the train of Elsa's ice dress.

"Can you just tell me–"

"You wouldn't believe if I told you."

She dragged her farther, down the stairs, down the corridor, down another flight of stairs and Anna suddenly realized they were going to the dungeons. Elsa made her way excitedly past the cold, empty cells and down another, secret staircase, until they were in the deepest part of the dungeon, in front of the emissary's guard's cell door.

"Him?" Anna asked, surprised. This is why Elsa interrupted her training, while they were on the verge of a war? "He's been here for, what? Three months? And now suddenly there's something interesting about him?"

Elsa rolled her eyes. "Just go in."

Anna wanted to express her doubts about entering a cell that held an angry, military-trained prisoner, but something about Elsa's gaze told her there was no other way out of this now. She took the key Elsa offered and turned it in the lock, waiting to hear a shuffle from inside. Nothing came, though. She pressed the door and it gave in with a whine of the old hinges, revealing a small, stuffy cell with no windows, a straw bed, a bucket and only a small ventilation hole high up in the far corner. Below it, with his face towards the wall, stood a man clad in ragged clothes.

Elsa nodded for her to go in, before she switched her attention to the prisoner. "Turn around."

It was as if he had been waiting for that order. Before the echo of her words even died down, the prisoner slowly turned around, dragging his feet on the ground, slouched in an odd, eerie way.

When he finally lifted his face to look at Anna, she jumped back right into Elsa.

"What the hell is wrong with him!?" she yelled, turning to the best of her abilities to look at the Queen's face while cold arms snaked their way around her waist.

"He's gorgeous, isn't he?" Elsa murmured, placing her chin on Anna's shoulder.

"What did you do to him?"

"I killed him."

"You– what?" Anna asked in disbelief, turning her attention back to the man in front of them. He stood there, motionless but he _stood_. "He doesn't _look _dead."

"Because he isn't," Elsa answered, and Anna's mind was a mess. "Well, not anymore. I ordered him to rise."

"You… raised him back from the dead?"

She could see Elsa's bright smile out the corner of her eye.

"Amazing, right?"

"Elsa, that's insane!"

The smile faded. "I did it for you," Elsa said, in that dark voice that Anna grew to both fear and resent over the past weeks. "You could be at least _somewhat_ grateful."

"He was a _war prisoner_, Elsa–"

"War prisoner?" Elsa looked genuinely baffled. "There is no war, Anna. He was just staying here."

"Wh– You know what, nevermind." There was no point arguing with her when she was like that. She fell into this stupor every now and then, and Anna found the best way to deal with that was to just leave her be for some time. "I'm going back to my training."

She turned to leave the cell.

"NO!"

The door slammed before her, covered in frost, and an ice cold hand caught her wrist again. It _burned _her skin where the fingers wrapped around like a tight shackle.

"Elsa, let go of me!"

She didn't. Instead, the room got uncomfortably cold, with ice creeping out of every crevice in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, covering the air vent and climbing up the prisoner's legs. Elsa's eyes flashed that odd color again, and blue veins spread across her neck and chest, down her arms, her forearms, until they reached her hands.

Anna screamed in pain.

Where before Elsa's hand burned her skin, now it felt like it was searing through her flesh and bone.

"Elsa, you're hurting me!"

She let go, and the cell went back to normal.

"Gods, Anna, I'm–"

Anna pushed her arms away when she tried to hug her.

"D-Don't," she managed through chattering teeth. "Just, don't."

She backed into the door and pulled it open, thanking the heavens it wasn't frozen shut.

* * *

Elsa apologized. Many times. Way more times than she needed to, honestly.

While she might have scared and scarred her back in the cell, Anna couldn't find it in herself to stay away from her.

"I love you," she whispered against Elsa's mouth as cool fingers worked inside her. She ran her tongue over icy lips, parting them, as if melting through to get inside Elsa. Despite the cold, the embrace was still warm. The pleasure building up inside Anna still fiery. The kiss still heated, even when she could feel the frost spread down her throat.

"I love you too," Elsa said softly once she pulled away, looking at her with the same sweet, adorning eyes as she used to before all of this happened. "You're my life, Anna."

"And you mine."

* * *

She strode angrily across the dim hall, almost kicking her way into Elsa's study. She was there, as Anna was sure she would be, standing still as a statue with not even a rustle of breeze bothering her royal gown of black ice.

The only life in the room came from the single candle burning weakly, as if deathly ill, on Elsa's desk, the light glimmering across the crystal crown on Elsa's head.

"Have you lost your mind for good!?"

Elsa turned away from the window she was looking through, a genuine surprise on her face.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, I could forgive killing criminals," Anna started, feeling furious heat rising in her chest. "Somehow. Was hard to swallow at first, but I got used to it." She gritted her teeth and stepped closer to the window. "I could _tolerate_ your experiments, and all those… _wights _in the gardens and the halls." It was eerie. Passing men and women who should long be dead, who looked at her with unseeing, unflinching blue eyes. They scared her, at first, but now they only made her sad. She wished she'd never meet a similar fate. "But civilians!?"

Elsa looked at her with an unperturbed face.

"Children, Elsa!?"

It was this morning she saw a child on the street, standing in the same, idle way, her eyes blue and unblinking.

"I did not kill them."

Anna stopped right before her.

"The cold did."

She slapped Elsa across the cheek so hard her face turned back towards the window.

"Don't bullshit me!" she screamed, unable to hold her anger back. "I saw one of them. She was like your _pets_!"

"The cold killed her," Elsa repeated, turning her face slowly back towards her, eerily calm. "The cold changed her, too."

It took all of Anna's willpower not to slap her again. "_Your_ cold!"

Elsa kept looking at her with that passive expression. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Stop it! Call it back! The people fear you, and, frankly, _I _do too!" That seemed to finally get a reaction from her. She lifted one of her cold hands to Anna's cheek, and the tears that run down it froze immediately. Broken, Anna sunk into that waiting hand. "What is happening? Why is it like this?"

Elsa's brows furrowed in confusion. "Like what?"

Anna pointed to the window. "Haven't you noticed?" she asked, genuinely. Elsa holed herself up in her study and rarely left it. She might have no idea. "People are dying. Of cold, yes, but of hunger and disease too. Frost and snow are taking over every inch of visible space, and it's April already. Spring should be in bloom."

Elsa's hand made its way over Anna's chest.

"And the days– they're so short, Elsa. I feel like it's night time most of the time I'm awake."

"They will be shorter still," she finally said something of substance. Anna's eyes widened. "Until they won't be at all."

Anna's lip trembled. She really, _really_ didn't want to hear her confirm what Anna already knew deep down. "They call you the Night Queen, you know?" She let out a shaky breath. "They say you've brought the long night. That there never will be a day again, only darkness and cold. That you're the doom of us all."

"So I might be."

* * *

Riding through the dark town felt like a walk through a cemetery. Anywhere she looked, a pair of blue eyes glowed back, ever unmoving, idling, waiting. She hurried her horse to a gallop, knowing full well there was no way she was gonna bump into someone on the once busy street.

It took her longer than she thought to get to the trolls. Treacherous ice covered the usual path, forcing her to take odd detours every now and then. The darkness didn't help.

When she finally got to their circle, even the trolls seemed frozen.

Once she hopped off the horse, however, one boulder rolled up to her.

"Pabbie!" she shouted, relieved to see the old troll. "A-Are you alone?"

He hung his head. "The others don't want to waste energy turning now, I'm afraid. Might need it for later."

Anna frowned. This sounded very ominous, even for Pabbie. "And Kristoff? Is he well?"

She'd _ordered_ him to run for the hills once she realized there was something wrong going on with Elsa. Olaf tagged along, 'to keep the Svens safe'.

"Taken by the cold, I'm afraid."

The words took a while to register. Then tears broke through before she even had a chance to try and control them. "I'm so sorry, Pabbie," she whispered. This was her fault. She saw what was happening and let it happen anyway. She should have stopped her. "Elsa, she–"

He looked up at her with his big, sad, droopy eyes. "She became the Night Queen."

"Y-You knew?"

He nodded. "A prophecy from long ago." He moved his hand and white sparks illuminated the thick darkness around them. They formed what looked like Elsa's profile, and Anna felt her breath hitch. "A woman would come, too powerful for a single man, for ten men, for a thousand men to take her down."

Small silhouettes appeared before Elsa, but she crushed them, one by one. "Power would consume her." Elsa's white form got streaked with blue veins, and the silhouettes started to fall down in groups, small at first, then larger and larger. "In time, she'd learn to control the darkest of it." The silhouettes stood up again, their little heads dotted with blue eyes. "And with the darkest of it, darkness would come."

Everything faded and Anna stared into the blackness of the night. No light. No warmth. No sound but her own breathing.

"What can we do now?" she asked in a small voice when the silence became unbearable.

"We?" Pabbie asked, surprised. "We can't do anything, Princess Anna."

Anna's heart sunk.

"But _you _can do something."

He turned around and walked back into the darkness, leaving her alone for what felt like an eternity–she couldn't even tell if days and nights didn't pass, so frozen she was in place. If days could even pass still when the only thing there was was night. Maybe time stopped for them all too.

Pabbie finally came back, slowly, setting his feet carefully on the ground, carrying something in his hands.

"You're the only one who could do it," he started without much preparation, "you're the only one who can get close enough."

He passed the object to her and her mouth fell open. It was a knife– no, more of a dagger than a knife. It was black as the night itself, carved carelessly out of some material she had never seen before in her life. Lighter than she expected when she took it in her hand, it seemed to resonate with something that felt almost _warm_ to the touch.

She lifted it to her face, inspecting it close

"You want me to–" she couldn't finish.

Pabbie nodded again. "Straight through to the heart."

Her arm dropped to her side, but she held on to the blade. "I–I can't," she stammered quickly, giving Pabbie an apologetic look. "She's my sister, I can't–"

"You _must_, Princess. Only you."

* * *

She saw the fires burn from miles away. Not that impressive, really, when you're surrounded by complete darkness.

She briefly wondered how they managed to get through the ice wall. Explosives, perhaps. Maybe a drill. Maybe dug under, though she was more than sure the wall reached very deep into the ground as well. They really had to be desperate to come here.

Maybe the night didn't cover just Arendelle. Maybe it spread farther past the borders. Maybe the cold overtook the entire continent, and she was locked up in here, unaware.

Locked up with the person solely responsible for all of this.

She kicked the horse into a wild gallop, reaching the city gates in a mad stride, hoping to heavens somewhere up there that they wouldn't trip over something in the dark. Once she entered the city, however, she had to slow down. Fires burned everywhere, making it easy to see, but a new concern arose.

Bodies. Dead bodies littered the streets. Bitten to death. Beaten to death. Stabbed with their own swords. The wights stood above them, idling again, and Anna felt almost sad she didn't get to see them _do something_ in the end.

There were screams still coming from the castle, so she made her way through the carnage, trying not to pay too much attention to every corpse. It would all be over soon, anyway.

She rode past a man running out through the castle gates. She didn't stop to tell him there was no point. The wights would get him, anyway.

The courtyard looked even worse than the streets. Bodies _piled up_ everywhere, surrounded by too many wights to even try and count them. None of them paid any attention to her, as per usual. It was almost boring.

She hopped off her horse and made her way inside the building. There, at least, some people were still alive. Most of them lying on the floor with their guts strewn out, but still.

One of them caught her by the boot.

"Please," he said, a young boy, no older than Anna herself. "Please, kill me."

She opened her mouth to say something–she had no time, goddamnit! She had a mission!–but the pleading look in his eyes was enough to silence her. She grabbed the sword at her side and swiftly unsheathed it. Then, with one move, the boy's throat was cut, and his eyes closed in bliss.

More screams from upstairs brought her back to reality. With the sword still out, she took the stairs in a stride, her cold, heavy armor clattering with every step.

She did get to see the wights fight, after all. The first floor was swarmed with both the enemy soldiers and Elsa's minions. All locked up in fights. Wights winning, mostly.

Anna pushed her way through the mayhem and her sword through men that were in her way, desperately scanning the surroundings for Elsa, but she was nowhere to be seen.

But a trail of ice on the wall was all she needed. Grunting in exhaustion, she followed it, stepping over and between corpses.

She finally made it to Elsa's study and slammed her shoulder into the door. It gave in.

"Anna!"

Elsa was there, standing behind the desk, blood trickling down her face from where her own crown of jagged, twisted black ice bit into her skin. She must have fallen. Her chin was bruised, and the royal gown was torn in places. Somebody had to get through to her.

Anna dropped the sword at the door and ran over to embrace her.

"Thank goodness, you're safe," Elsa whispered into her hair, cold breath caressing her ear. "I was so worried about you. These idiots couldn't have chosen a better time."

Her chest was pressed into Anna's, but then she moved away an inch to look at her face, leaving just enough space between them. Enough to maneuver the blade and strike her straight through the heart. Enough so that she could not run away when Anna pushed it in.

That is, had Anna not thrown that dagger off the fjord, into the sea, where it rested somewhere at the bottom, never to be found.

Elsa tucked Anna's white hair behind her ear.

"I promised I would protect you," Anna husked out, looking at those beautiful blue eyes. "I'd like to see them try and come at you now."

She caressed the blue streaked and bloodstained cheek, so soft and warm under her fingers.

Elsa leant into her touch and let a breath out, barely audible over the cracking of the ice spreading across the walls and floors and the screams of battle outside.

Then everything went still for a second, before the screams turned into horror.

"We'll fix it all, Love."

There was undisputable, horrible darkness in her glowing eyes.

And maybe

"Whatever path you take, my Queen."

And _maybe_

That same darkness was inside Anna, too.


End file.
